FBI Houston said Friday that agents identified the student after receiving a report last week about a threat targeting a middle school in Victoria.

Connor Hagan, a public affairs officer for FBI Houston, told Chron the agency worked with social media companies to identify the girl despite what he described as “deliberate” attempts to obscure her identity online.

“I think that’s something that kids forget a lot: These social media companies do not want threats being posted on their platforms as much as anyone else,” Hagan said.

The FBI turned over her identity to the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested her at a bus stop in front of classmates, according to Hagan. She now faces state charges. The agency also declined to identify the school or disclose what the alleged threat said. 

Chron has reached out to the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office for additional information about the charges.

The case comes as FBI Houston says it has seen a sharp decline in the number of suspected school threats reported since the start of the current school year 

Hagan said FBI Houston has made contact with seven people over suspected school threats since the current school year began, compared with more than 40 during the previous year and more than 150 the year before that. Not everyone contacted by the FBI was necessarily charged.

Most young people encountered in school-threat investigations are between 13 and 17. 

“I think one thing that we do see is these kids, they do an action and they don’t consider the consequences,” Hagan noted. “Some of our guys responded to the Uvalde shooting. We’ve shown up at mass casualty attacks that occurred where real kids died, and we’re not going to play around with hoax threats in our community.” 

And students shouldn’t expect anonymity online to protect them from investigators, he added.

“If these kids think that they can hide behind whatever social media techniques that they will use to obscure themselves, it’s not going to work,” Hagan said. “We’ve got some of the best in the business at identifying spies, terrorists, cyber criminals. Identifying a 14-year-old is going to happen as well.”